November 30, 2021 | BY RENEE POWELL (LPGA.COM)
Editor’s Note (source: PGATour.com):
Condolences may be sent to: Lee and Sharon Elder, c/o Dori O’Rourke, PO Box 461899, Escondido, CA 92046
The golf world lost an icon on Sunday, a figure who will forever have his name etched into sports history. And I lost a friend, a man I have known since I was an 18-year-old girl playing in United Golf Association events around the country with other men and women, boys and girls, pros and amateurs of color who wanted nothing more than to compete in the game we all loved.
Lee Elder called me the week before Thanksgiving while I was in Naples for the CME Group Tour Championship. As always, he was positive and upbeat. He wanted to talk about a potential project he was putting together for us in Boston the week of the upcoming U.S. Open. At age 87, he rarely looked back. He was always excited about the next idea, the next adventure, the next big thing. For someone who could no longer walk on his own, Lee remained the kind of person who was always moving forward.
I told him that I would get back to him once I got home to Ohio. But I never got the chance. This past Sunday my phone lit up with messages and calls. Lee had left us.
When I was young, I viewed him as an uncle. He wasn’t the only one. There were plenty of Black men who loved golf and kept their eye out for a teenager trying to make her way in the game. Charlie Sifford, Pete Brown, George Johnson: they were always asking me how I was doing; asking about my game; giving me tips about where to eat, where to stay, and what to avoid on the road. The UGA was created in the mid-1920s as a tour for all Black golfers who could not find competitive outlets because of segregation. Ted Rhodes and Bill Spiller were early members.
At an event in Miami, I met Lee for the first time. He threw his head back and smiled, greeting me like I was a long, lost relative. As an 18-year-old on the road trying to navigate my way through tournament golf, there was comfort in the friendship of an older man. We played a practice round together that week and he could not have been more complimentary.
Everything about Lee was polished, then and to the end. While men like Charlie were also kind and warm and funny, especially around me, they also had a hardness about them. But they had to be that way. The world was cruel, and they had to develop an edge to survive. Lee had the gift of being just as hard without ever showing it. He always looked like he’d never met a stranger.
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